Speeches by Hatton.

“2. What steps his Department is taking to move clinics and routine appointments into community hospitals.”

“I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important and timely debate. I pay tribute to him for the persistence that he has shown in campaigning on this issue over many years, and for his work in this place helping to make and win the argument for deploying…”

“Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the current situation in Georgia is not dissimilar to what we have seen in other central and eastern European countries and beyond, where Russia seeks to have greater political influence and control and has mission creep? Unless countries such as the United Kingdom push back ag…”

“I believe that proper resourcing of OFSI is essential. Similarly, other bodies and authorities that fight economic crime must be properly resourced so that they can do their job properly. Three further changes are needed to ensure that there are effective instruments for challenging human rights abuses. First, to free …”

“I agree with the right hon. Member’s remarks. I think that the actions of the previous Government and this Government to tackle the shadow fleet are starting to bite. The measures are hitting the Kremlin war machine and will slash the revenues that Putin desperately relies upon to continue to wage war in Ukraine. Secon…”

“Despite serving a town of nearly 50,000 people, Weymouth station, in my constituency, does not have a working toilet, which presents disabled passengers with a huge barrier to travel. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this legislation, and action from the Government to bring our railways back into public hands, will…”

“It is really useful to see the different tones we have from the DWP compared to similar sessions we have with the chief of HMRC, when they look at tax fraud versus benefit fraud. It is helpful for this Committee to understand the similarities and the different ways of working in terms of pursuing enforcement. If I migh…”

“I would like to focus my questioning, if I may, on the safeguards that you are putting in place to ensure that particularly the new powers that you have around enforcement are being used proportionately and effectively. It would be helpful if you could start by outlining what safeguards there are and whether you feel t…”

“Just for clarity, your view is that the two main reasons for underpayment are either deteriorating health or poor public trust in DWP in terms of making sure that people get the correct amount of support.”

“In a nutshell, whether or not you decide to pursue criminal prosecutions with the CPS or a civil penalty, is DWP’s main motivation a cost-benefit calculation in terms of how much this could end up costing the public purse? You were maybe suggesting—correct me if I am wrong—that you are adopting more of a deterrence app…”

“Permanent secretary, you have these new enforcement powers alongside the ones that you had before. Could you explain a little more to the Committee the approach of DWP in relation to both criminal prosecutions and civil penalties for benefit fraud? What thinking goes into whether you pursue either criminal prosecution …”

“That sounds like the same as what I was saying, though, which is that it was a surprise.”

“I appreciate that there have been some innovations that are, hopefully, going to bring down those caseloads, but we are starting at a consistently high point. Do you not share the concern that, because of that, we are still just working through a retention crisis and are going to see more and more people in the Probati…”

“That is quite shocking.”

“Looking more to the future, how confident are you that the MOJ now understands the true extent of the staffing shortfalls in probation? Do you foresee that estimate changing again? It has been revised, so do you see there being further revision in the future, or do you now have a grip on what the true extent of the sta…”

“If you put yourself in the position of a probation officer, you would think, “Why am I going to stick around in this job for a long time if those at the top do not even know how many staff are required to get the job done effectively?””

“Just to confirm, it was a surprise to the MOJ when we found out that there were half the staff required to run sentence management.”

“My concern, though, is that the estimates in the example that I gave are so inaccurate, and the staffing shortfall so significant within the Probation Service. Do you not share my concern that, if you have a retention crisis in the Probation Service, you are part of causing that crisis because you do not know how many …”

“My other serious concern is that we have major capacity challenges facing the entire prisons estate. That is drawing probation officers away from their day-to-day work into supporting a struggling prisons estate. Where does that take us? You have a Probation Service that cannot do its job properly because it is having …”

“Regardless of the decision to unify the services, why was it allowed to get so bad? Given that particularly jarring conclusion in the NAO Report that the Probation Service has been operating with around half of the staff required to run sentence management, how did it get to the point that it was that poor before the M…”